The Vietnam war

We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.
--Ronald Reagan, 1964.


    See, the Vietnam war started with the French and Vietnamese fighting and then Communist North vietnam trying to take over south vietnam. The Americans seen this as a DIRECT threat to democracy, seeing that there has already been a domino effect, in play already (China/Russia's influence on Vietnam) and then Communism will spread, spread, spread in a "Domino effect" as country, by country they fall to Communism.

There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier's sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.
--Philip Caputo, 1982


The war turned out to be NOTHING they expected to be.